As I said, they should be fair to all regions. If they can only license a particular title for America, they should license something else in the EU to compensate, or give us a discount on our subscription fees.

It's not rocket science, just playing fair.

Crunchyroll's business model is such that it doesn't have enough UK subscribers(others have pointed out that the Japanese divide the EU into a number of different regions so I am going with the biggest European market, the United Kingdom here) that Crunchyroll can license something for the UK alone. North America is where Crunchyroll has the most subscribers, and it has more subscribers than all the other regions combined. And Crunchyroll is the ONLY North America-based streaming service that also caters to the U.K, Latin America, the Netherlands and the Nordic Countries. Funimation doesn't, The Anime Network doesn't, Hulu certainly doesn't(Canada gets left out in the cold by Hulu). And Crunchyroll gets more simulcasts than Anime on Demand, which does go it alone for the U.K(and Ireland).

I would personally love to see Europeans be able to get series that we aren't able to get here in North America. But if you really look at it, Crunchyroll needs more EU subscribers to be able to either get UK-only rights or to get a secondary sublicense from the UK anime companies so British members can have access to more catalog titles. And TheAncientOne has addressed why a discount for Europeans is not as easy as you make it out to be. A lot of peoplealso don't understand how expensive contract costs really are. The contract costs for Crunchyroll to draw up a new contract with the Japanese to get expanded regional rights could cast as much as or more than the Minimal Guarantee.

mendo_shutarowrote:
It makes you mad? That's a shame. You should try seeing it from our point of view, as we see announcement after announcement followed by a rather obnoxious warning, which essentially says 'AMERICANS ONLY. FOREIGNERS NOT WELCOME'.

Bottom line, Crunchy Roll premium subs cost the same the world over. They all go into a giant pot of money to license anime. CR could license anime equally, sharing out the pot to all subscribers, ensuring we all get our fair share. Instead CR dish out a few servings to all, then a big extra serving to Americans. The trouble is, the rest of us see this happening, and it makes us rather cross.

Yes, groundless accusations like other countries "subsidizing" the U.S. (funny that Canada was omitted) based on simplistic thinking make me mad.

Since you seem to think the subscription price should be based on the amount of anime titles, perhaps you can explain why the price hasn't changed since Crunchyroll started, despite a substantial increase in the amount of anime (both offered as simulcasts and the total library)?

If you think it costs the same to provide subscribers in a specific country or region as the U.S. or Canada, perhaps you can point to a number of other successful streaming services in that same country. Obviously a streaming service should be able to offer the same number of titles as CR does for a lower price, since you say Crunchyroll should be charging less.

If it wasn't Crunchyroll that was streaming to your country, but some separate service that provided the same amount of anime you are getting now, but charged the same price, would you still be complaining?

mendo_shutarowrote:
It makes you mad? That's a shame. You should try seeing it from our point of view, as we see announcement after announcement followed by a rather obnoxious warning, which essentially says 'AMERICANS ONLY. FOREIGNERS NOT WELCOME'.

Bottom line, Crunchy Roll premium subs cost the same the world over. They all go into a giant pot of money to license anime. CR could license anime equally, sharing out the pot to all subscribers, ensuring we all get our fair share. Instead CR dish out a few servings to all, then a big extra serving to Americans. The trouble is, the rest of us see this happening, and it makes us rather cross.

Yes, groundless accusations like other countries "subsidizing" the U.S. (funny that Canada was omitted) based on simplistic thinking make me mad.

Since you seem to think the subscription price should be based on the amount of anime titles, perhaps you can explain why the price hasn't changed since Crunchyroll started, despite a substantial increase in the amount of anime (both offered as simulcasts and the total library)?

If you think it costs the same to provide subscribers in a specific country or region as the U.S. or Canada, perhaps you can point to a number of other successful streaming services in that same country. Obviously a streaming service should be able to offer the same number of titles as CR does for a lower price, since you say Crunchyroll should be charging less.

If it wasn't Crunchyroll that was streaming to your country, but some separate service that provided the same amount of anime you are getting now, but charged the same price, would you still be complaining?

You have completely missed by central point.

It doesn't matter how good a deal CR offers, or how unique their service is. The bottom line is that they're sharing out the pot of licensing money unfairly at present. In short, if you're an American (or Canadian (it's very rare for the Canadians to catch a break)) you get a larger percentage of the CR budget allocated to you simply because of where you live.

It doesn't matter how good a deal CR offers, or how unique their service is. The bottom line is that they're sharing out the pot of licensing money unfairly at present. In short, if you're an American (or Canadian (it's very rare for the Canadians to catch a break)) you get a larger percentage of the CR budget allocated to you simply because of where you live.

It's unfair. Surely you can agree with that?

No, I don't agree it is unfair.

The U.S. and Canada get more because they contribute a massive chunk of the subscription income. While I don't have inside info giving a breakdown on views of episodes per country, it isn't that difficult to find information on website traffic per country. That information shows traffic to CR from the U.S. coming at the mid to upper forties in percentage, while all other nations are in the single digits. That's just traffic. It isn't much of leap to see the subscription rate would be even higher, for obvious reasons.

You seemed to have missed the point that anime isn't strictly a matter of x cost per view.

The argument that countries and regions that have a much smaller subscriber base because the subscribers pay the same is akin to a small mom and pop store thinking they should get the same price on a case of peanut butter they buy once per month as a national grocery chain that buys a pallet load per day. After all, the cost of manufacture is the same, right? They would be making the same mistake; looking only at the product, and missing the other costs associated with it.

If you one really believes that it is "unfair" or that you are "subsidizing" viewing in the U.S. and Canada, they do have a very simple option; don't subscribe. Of course, if other people follow that lead, you'll be seeing even less anime for your country and region, but at least you can feel good that you are that you aren't contributing to an "unfair" system.

Now, if I thought for a moment that subscription money from other countries was subsidizing U.S. and Canada licenses, there would be some serious selfish motivation for me to encourage subscribers from other countries to stay. But I don't believe that, so from a selfish standpoint, I don't really care if they leave. In fact, I would be quite happy if the complainers that always pop up in any thread for a title that is licensed only for the U.S. or Canada would leave. Of course, your fellow viewers in your country or region would likely have a different opinion, since that lower subscription income in the same region would affect them.

It doesn't matter how good a deal CR offers, or how unique their service is. The bottom line is that they're sharing out the pot of licensing money unfairly at present. In short, if you're an American (or Canadian (it's very rare for the Canadians to catch a break)) you get a larger percentage of the CR budget allocated to you simply because of where you live.

It's unfair. Surely you can agree with that?

No, I don't agree it is unfair.

The U.S. and Canada get more because they contribute a massive chunk of the subscription income. While I don't have inside info giving a breakdown on views of episodes per country, it isn't that difficult to find information on website traffic per country. That information shows traffic to CR from the U.S. coming at the mid to upper forties in percentage, while all other nations are in the single digits. That's just traffic. It isn't much of leap to see the subscription rate would be even higher, for obvious reasons.

You seemed to have missed the point that anime isn't strictly a matter of x cost per view.

The argument that countries and regions that have a much smaller subscriber base because the subscribers pay the same is akin to a small mom and pop store thinking they should get the same price on a case of peanut butter they buy once per month as a national grocery chain that buys a pallet load per day. After all, the cost of manufacture is the same, right? They would be making the same mistake; looking only at the product, and missing the other costs associated with it.

If you one really believes that it is "unfair" or that you are "subsidizing" viewing in the U.S. and Canada, they do have a very simple option; don't subscribe. Of course, if other people follow that lead, you'll be seeing even less anime for your country and region, but at least you can feel good that you are that you aren't contributing to an "unfair" system.

Now, if I thought for a moment that subscription money from other countries was subsidizing U.S. and Canada licenses, there would be some serious selfish motivation for me to encourage subscribers from other countries to stay. But I don't believe that, so from a selfish standpoint, I don't really care if they leave. In fact, I would be quite happy if the complainers that always pop up in any thread for a title that is licensed only for the U.S. or Canada would leave. Of course, your fellow viewers in your country or region would likely have a different opinion, since that lower subscription income in the same region would affect them.

Let's say I walk into an Apple store in America somewhere to buy a 32gb iPhone. I pay my money and walk out with... a 32gb iPhone.

Now let's say I walk into an Apple store in the UK to buy a 32gb iPhone. The price is the same (or actually somewhat inflated), but when I walk out of the store I see I've actually got a 24gb iPhone. Hang on, didn't I just pay the same (or more) as the Americans? But I got LESS?

You can rationalise it and justify it all you like, but you're wrong. When you enter a market you must treat that market with respect and treat it fairly, or else, to be frank, you don't belong in that market.

The simple fact is that at the moment there are very, very few anime streaming options, and being realistic CR is the only serious game in town. They have a near monopoly, so it's not as if we unfortunate gaijin have anywhere else to go, aside from bittorrent, which does of course offer that winning combo of global availability of EVERYTHING, and at an attractive, highly discounted price point. I'd like to stay legal, to support the industry, but CR need to try MUCH, MUCH harder.

mendo_shutarowrote:
You can rationalise it and justify it all you like, but you're wrong. When you enter a market you must treat that market with respect and treat it fairly, or else, to be frank, you don't belong in that market.

Answer me this: Does Netflix in the UK offer as many titles as Netflix in the United States?

It is $7.99 per month here, and it appears the UK pays more, at 5.99 pounds per month, which is around $9.59 currently).

Your definition of "fair" seems to be "Give me the same amount of shows for the same cost, even if it costs you more to make them available to me". Businesses don't work that way.

mendo_shutarowrote:
You can rationalise it and justify it all you like, but you're wrong. When you enter a market you must treat that market with respect and treat it fairly, or else, to be frank, you don't belong in that market.

Answer me this: Does Netflix in the UK offer as many titles as Netflix in the United States?

It is $7.99 per month here, and it appears the UK pays more, at 5.99 pounds per month, which is around $9.59 currently).

Your definition of "fair" seems to be "Give me the same amount of shows for the same cost, even if it costs you more to make them available to me". Businesses don't work that way.

Yes, Netflix Canada with its anemic collection costs the same as Netflix USA... Some people get US mailboxes to get around this...

It doesn't matter how good a deal CR offers, or how unique their service is. The bottom line is that they're sharing out the pot of licensing money unfairly at present. In short, if you're an American (or Canadian (it's very rare for the Canadians to catch a break)) you get a larger percentage of the CR budget allocated to you simply because of where you live.

It's unfair. Surely you can agree with that?

No, I don't agree it is unfair.

The U.S. and Canada get more because they contribute a massive chunk of the subscription income. While I don't have inside info giving a breakdown on views of episodes per country, it isn't that difficult to find information on website traffic per country. That information shows traffic to CR from the U.S. coming at the mid to upper forties in percentage, while all other nations are in the single digits. That's just traffic. It isn't much of leap to see the subscription rate would be even higher, for obvious reasons.

You seemed to have missed the point that anime isn't strictly a matter of x cost per view.

The argument that countries and regions that have a much smaller subscriber base because the subscribers pay the same is akin to a small mom and pop store thinking they should get the same price on a case of peanut butter they buy once per month as a national grocery chain that buys a pallet load per day. After all, the cost of manufacture is the same, right? They would be making the same mistake; looking only at the product, and missing the other costs associated with it.

If you one really believes that it is "unfair" or that you are "subsidizing" viewing in the U.S. and Canada, they do have a very simple option; don't subscribe. Of course, if other people follow that lead, you'll be seeing even less anime for your country and region, but at least you can feel good that you are that you aren't contributing to an "unfair" system.

Now, if I thought for a moment that subscription money from other countries was subsidizing U.S. and Canada licenses, there would be some serious selfish motivation for me to encourage subscribers from other countries to stay. But I don't believe that, so from a selfish standpoint, I don't really care if they leave. In fact, I would be quite happy if the complainers that always pop up in any thread for a title that is licensed only for the U.S. or Canada would leave. Of course, your fellow viewers in your country or region would likely have a different opinion, since that lower subscription income in the same region would affect them.

Let's say I walk into an Apple store in America somewhere to buy a 32gb iPhone. I pay my money and walk out with... a 32gb iPhone.

Now let's say I walk into an Apple store in the UK to buy a 32gb iPhone. The price is the same (or actually somewhat inflated), but when I walk out of the store I see I've actually got a 24gb iPhone. Hang on, didn't I just pay the same (or more) as the Americans? But I got LESS?

You can rationalise it and justify it all you like, but you're wrong. When you enter a market you must treat that market with respect and treat it fairly, or else, to be frank, you don't belong in that market.

The simple fact is that at the moment there are very, very few anime streaming options, and being realistic CR is the only serious game in town. They have a near monopoly, so it's not as if we unfortunate gaijin have anywhere else to go, aside from bittorrent, which does of course offer that winning combo of global availability of EVERYTHING, and at an attractive, highly discounted price point. I'd like to stay legal, to support the industry, but CR need to try MUCH, MUCH harder.

He's not wrong. The money is distributed fairly.

You're comparing an apple product to anime licensing in a totally incorrect way.

You're pretending to be CR as the buyer, but think of it this way: The iphone is 500 dollars US no matter where you go. However, you only make enough in your job the UK to save up for 1/4 of the price of the iphone per month when you pay the rest of your expenses. In the US however, they pay you enough per month to buy two of them. Therefore, which job location offers you a lot more money for leisure and random expenses?

Same logic. CR gets a certain amount of income from their US/Canada viewers. With that, due to their superior income from north america, they are able to buy more licenses for north america to satisfy their customer base. If they took the north american population's money and simply bought the same amount of licenses for every region, you'd have an astronomically small amount of anime for north americans in relationship to how many there are, because as far as I'm aware, license prices don't vary all that much by region, so we could think of it as a fixed price.

That's the equivalent of you getting paid in the UK and someone in zimbabwe taking some of your money and using it without your consent.

Is that fair by capitalism standards? No.

People like you are funny. You complain about things without properly understanding their logic. You try running a company with your pseudo-fairness and call me up. I'll bring a stopwatch to time how quickly it plummets.

I think there's still plenty enough for UK users for it to be worth the subscription money. Heck, it's only £5/month. Sure I have to go elsewhere to watch Medaka Box but for there's still SAO, Blast of Tempest, BTOOOM! and a ton of stuff I've not watched yet.

This season's maybe a bit disappointing compared to last, but with Anime on Demand stepping up their game it's good for the UK in general. Sure CR will respond.